Guild Wars 2

Not counting moderators and community coordinator staff moving/closing threads, I’ve gone through and counted up all dev posts on each profession, and will list the times of posting as close as the forum shows. It’s entirely possible (in fact, likely) that I’ve missed some; if you’d like to prove me wrong on the count, you’re welcome to go paging through hundreds of pages of threads.

Elementalist: 17 dev responses in 128 pages (two ‘about a month ago’, one October 1st, 17:14, one June 26th, 15:47, one ‘3 months ago (bonus points: dev responding to a “Question (to Devs)” thread),’ three ‘7 months ago,’ seven ‘8 months ago (two in one thread, two in another),’ two ‘10 months ago’)

Engineer: 25 dev responses in 146 pages (one ‘about a day ago’, nine ‘3 months ago (two in one thread, six in another (turns out Tyler Bearce actually plays the Engineer)),’ one ‘15 days ago,’ three ‘about a month ago,’ four ‘2 months ago (two in one thread, two in another)’ two ‘8 months ago (two in one thread),’ one ‘4 months ago,’ one ‘5 months ago,’ one ‘7 months ago,’ two ‘10 months ago’)
[Discounting Tyler talking shop and the CC staff who commented on somebody soloing a tower, that’s still 18]

Guardian: 10 dev responses in 109 pages (one ‘11 days ago,’ three ‘10 months ago,’ one ‘about a month ago,’ three ‘3 months ago (three in the same thread),’ two ‘7 months ago’)

Mesmer: 19 dev responses in 139 pages (eight ‘8 months ago (four in one thread, three in another),’ three ‘7 months ago,’ one ‘9 months ago, two ’10 months ago,’ three ‘3 months ago,’ one ‘about a month ago,’ four ‘5 months ago (two in one thread)’)

Necromancer: 38 dev responses in 155 pages (one ‘about a day ago,’ one ‘10 days ago,’ fourteen ‘9 months ago (six in one thread, two in another, three in another, two in another),’ six ‘2 months ago (three in one thread, two in another),’ three ‘about a month ago (two in one thread),’ two ‘3 months ago,’ two ‘10 months ago,’ seven ‘7 months ago (three in one thread, two in another),’ two ‘8 months ago’)

Ranger: 66 dev responses in 171 pages (two ‘11 days ago,’ two ‘about a month ago,’ twenty-three ‘4 months ago (three in one thread, three in another, eleven in a thread host to thirteen 5-months-ago posts,),’ two ‘10 months ago,’ ten ‘3 months ago (two in one thread, three in one thread, one in a thread also host to one of the 4-months-ago posts, two in another),’ two ‘3 days ago,’ one ‘10 days ago,’ five ‘9 months ago (three in one thread, two in one thread),’ thirteen ‘5 months ago (thirteen in one thread),’ six ‘7 months ago, (three in one thread),’ two ‘8 months ago’)
[An incredible amount of the Ranger posts were from Robert Hrouda; though he’s not on the balance team, he certainly enjoyed talking shop with Rangers four months ago; I think he had around twenty to thirty posts overall on this subforum]

Thief: 16 dev responses in 170 pages (two ‘about a month ago,’ four ‘3 months ago (four in one thread [note: Hrouda]),’ one ‘4 months ago,’ one ‘6 months ago,’ one ‘7 months ago,’ five ‘9 months ago,’ one ‘8 days ago,’ one ‘10 months ago’)

Warrior: 19 dev responses in 142 pages (two ‘11 days ago,’ one ‘17 days ago,’ one ‘25 days ago,’ one ‘3 months ago,’ two ‘about a month ago,’ one ‘2 months ago,’ six ‘4 months ago (Bonus points for the first two sentences of the thread being ’Please don’t delete my thread again. Anet, please tell me and others will you do something with warriors NOW?’ – and five other posts in this thread besides),’ two ‘7 months ago,’ two ‘8 months ago,’ one ‘10 months ago’)

As can be plainly seen, we aren’t being ignored.

However, I think I know why we feel that way.

The problem is, primarily, Kits. Well, not Kits, exactly. But the way that they override Legendaries and Back Items, and have the entire time the game’s been out. That is the problem. Now, they’ve said:

ColinJohanson.2394:

It’s something we’re absolutely aware of and want to address in the future, one of my main characters is an engineer so I feel ya on this one. My poor quaggan backpack is visible like 2% of the time I play as I kit swap, never mind my weapon skins.

We’re currently focusing our engineering (programmers, not guys with net guns) resources that could work on solutions to issues like kits/skins on major systems that address issues higher priority and wider reaching like lag in large battles, LFG, custom arenas, spectator mode and so on but this issue is absolutely on our radar.

As always, please post your ideas of what you’d like to see solution wise, we love to see the fun ideas y’all come up with too!

…and…

BillFreist.1527:

Some pretty interesting ideas here. I was actually spit-balling some ideas on how to address this today. This has always been something that has bothered me, too.

For example:

• Have kits respect the existing back item flag. If you have a back item and you want to show it, hide the kit. If you don’t have a back item or choose to hide it, always show the kit. Obviously this makes it a little harder than usual to tell what kit you are using, so:
  • A nameplate icon similar to Elemental Attunements would be a good addition (I may add this regardless if we can get the art )
  • Move the kit somewhere else on your body. I know, crazy right? For example, who doesn’t like a sweet fanny-pack?

Hopefully this finally gets resolved soon, and I’ll do what I can to see that happen. Keep in mind, as Colin mentioned before, that there are some pretty beefy projects going on that are consuming our engineering time. But that doesn’t exactly mean we can’t sneak stuff in here and there .

-Bill

…but I don’t think these posts really do much to address the feeling of being ignored. Especially not with Living Story being pumped out, and more skins besides.

At this moment, as far as I am aware, there are two skillsets of the engineer with some fairly glaring difficulties:
Kits override the appearance of both Back Items and Legendaries – both of which can require exorbitant amounts of time and effort to acquire, and both of which are sought largely, if not specifically, for their appearance. (Shields override back items as well, but that at least affects every class instead of one.)
Turrets don’t attack world bosses (and some quest object targets besides), overcharges don’t work properly, hitboxes may or may not still be bollocked, and I’m sure there’s some I haven’t noticed.

Posting about the issues of Turrets has gotten no response from any dev at all, to boot – I posted a video of the issue with World Bosses in action on the Game Bugs forum, and a thread about the flute got a response first. A thread where a Ranger may or may not have mistaken not leaving combat mode for a bugged trait got a response within four hours, and a video of a bug in action didn’t so much as warrant “Well, thanks for that.”

I think, therefore, that Kits and Turrets are both part of why at least some Engineers feel ignored – I even would’ve expected us to have almost no dev responses, before I went and counted.

Anymras.5729:

(Shields override back items as well, but that at least affects every class instead of one.)

Well, except the five out of eight classes that can’t use shields :p

It will affect them when they’re made able to use shields, then.

They’re busy. Christ guys. They’re making an MMO. You make an MMO and post on the forums and tell me how easy it is. They’ve openly stated that they read the forums and sometimes even print out forum posts for meetings. They can’t reply to every single forum post, especially when it’s going to hyper analyzed and trash talked.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

They’re busy. Christ guys. They’re making an MMO. You make an MMO and post on the forums and tell me how easy it is. They’ve openly stated that they read the forums and sometimes even print out forum posts for meetings. They can’t reply to every single forum post, especially when it’s going to hyper analyzed and trash talked.

Agreed. We clearly aren’t being ignored and if we aren’t being ignored then the only way to deal with out feelings of being ignored is to baby us and cater to our every whim. Which is completely unreasonable.

Engi has come a long way since day-one. So hats’ off to them for making us a more viable profession.

But turrets are still a big disappointment. Such a neat idea – but no execution or follow thru…

I think that the June 25 patch did a lot to bring Engineers into viability, especially the changes to Elixir Gun and Rifle aftercasts. I know I’ve been using them a lot more, and the changes to the Thumper Turret and Rocket Boots have done much to bring them back into prominence, although I don’t use them myself that often.

Having also played Elementalist, there was some irony in having an RtL-like skill being implemented for Engineers, without the downside of a 40s CD if not used to strike a target. The improvements to Burst Ele more than outweighed the other changes, though.

I also think that it’s interesting that Engineers are now considered one of the possible “Meta” classes for sPvP. I don’t play PvP much myself, but the so-called “Teldo build” that relies so heavily on Burning damage was largely made possible by the change to Rocket Boots.

That being said, Engineers still have a long way to go. Grenades are still the king of PvE due to Grenadier and Steel Packed Powder being simply too good compared to anything else. People will bring up Static Discharge, but in a class that has crippling hybrid tax on Mainhand Weapons, there is still too much risk for the glassiest of builds for the return in safe, sustainable DPS. (Only a single condi cleanse that doesn’t work against Immobilise, and also one of the higher cooldown burst rotations that simply does not compare in gap-closing/opening, CC and survivability to the Burst Ele)

I think that the hybrid tax has also done a lot to push most Engineers in PvP and WvW towards Condition Damage builds. I know that I’ve gotten a lot more kills in WvW from my Conditions than I have using direct damage from my Rifle when I run with Rifle and Grenades. And I can routinely reach ~2600 power due to Might stacks, so it’s not for a lack of direct damage.

As I see it, Engineer still has 3 main places for improvement:

• A better return for the risk of closing to melee-range with the Rifle.
  Despite Aftercast buffs to Jump Shot, Rifle still feels slow.
  Blunderbuss is most definitely NOT a 0.75sec cast, more like 1-1.25sec, and still has shoddy hit detection.
  Overcharged shot really should grant Evasion and not self-knockback.
  The addition of ICD to Sitting Duck has also crippled my pre-patch Bomb kit-Elixir Gun-Net Turret-Rifle Immobilisation Troll build.
  I also feel that there should be a trait that grants bonus %damage for being at less than 600 range with Rifle as a counterpoint to Scope.
  Hell, I’d even be happy if the Rifle auto-attack was reduced in range to a 600 range, 10 degree conal cleave attack with 3 maximum targets. It would go a long way to harmonise Rifle with the rest of the skills. Make damage scale with decreasing distance and I would finally take it over Pistol/Shield.

• Turrets are still the exclusive purview of 1v1 dueling builds and have little place outside of that in PvE and WvW.
  There’s a lot wrong with Turrets right now, from hitboxes, to AI, to the design flaw that often they’re much better detonated than picked up and preserved. (See: Healing Turret and Rifle Turret, the only 2 worth taking, and NOT worth keeping on the field).
  I think that making the AI prioritise Turrets targeting what you’re hitting is mostly what’s holding them back. Any step to fix Turrets should first implement this to see what balance ramifications this has. Remember that Turret Damage was buffed by a lot a few patches ago.

• I still feel that Gadgets are not worth taking. The changes to Slick Shoes and Rocket Boots were good starts, but as someone who is routinely used to playing with 3+ kits, there is simply way too much utility sacrificed for the investment in a utility slot. Gadgets also remain the only skill category to incorporate zero generalised condition removal outside of Rocket Boots.
  I feel that Engineer as a class has quite enough launches and toolbelt Projectile Finishers already, and would not be averse to Launch Battering Ram (Battering Ram toolbelt) transferring conditions to target struck. PBR is also kind of a crappy Updraft-analogue of the Elementalist, and it’s not helped by Rifle not being sufficiently rewarded for being up close.
  Despite the presence of CDR traits for Gadgets, there still remains very little done for them in the way of traits. I also feel that this is one of the major reasons why Gadgets have been consistently overshadowed by skills like Elixirs and Kits, which have greater utility and synergy in traits. I hope that with the addition of new traits in the future that this will be fixed, but honestly, there are so many junk traits for the Engineer that replacing some of them with Gadget traits (Acidic Elixirs, looking at you) would go a long way.

I think Engineers are in a really good place atm, and already were before the June 25th patch. But, I play 5 classes at lvl 80 : Mesmer, Engi, Guardian, necro and ranger. I have to say, for me, each one is in a good place in PvE AND in WvW (I just do some FFA sPvP so I wouldn’t take a position here…maybe there is work to do here), I won’t talk for the 3 other classes.

Globally there is just some stuff I would like to see for the classes I play :
- A new way to build a good condition mesmer (or maybe I haven’t tweaked it around enought since the confusion nerf)
- A new way to show/customise my backpack on my engineer (not sure it’s really that important)
- Some bugs still need to get fixed

And I think that’s all !
After this all I hope for the game is :
- a new fun class to play
- some mechanic events reworked
- some zones revamp
- some new zone (better than southencove :x)
- some work around WvW maps, etc…

Really, I think that the real emergency for engis is bug fixed and after this I don’t feel it needs more right now. And to be really honest, since the 25th june patch I reaaaaally don’t think we are being ignored :o
Maybe devs don’t answer a lot here, but really… do we need it ?

huge waste of time shrugs

It certainly is interesting to see how many posts we’ve actually gotten, though our total is still miles behind that of the ranger and the necromancer. So, in keeping with my thread invasion idea, I saw we start post bombing in the ranger forum. I get that we’re not actually being ignored in our entirety, but that doesn’t change the fact that some of the biggest issues the engineer community have are being ignored.

While I am pleased to see the kit issue –a personal concern of mine- getting a few posts addressing it, I still feel that we could get more open and honest feedback about it. I’ll come right out and say it, since tip-toeing around the issue has never yielded results; Colin Johanson lied in his post. I realize that is pretty inflammatory, but it is apparently what went down. The man is one of the biggest authorities on the development side of Guild Wars 2, so you can’t honestly expect me to believe that he just didn’t know that his claim of the team focusing more on tech and quality of life issues than cosmetic ones was a load of crap. Just look at all the cosmetic stuff added to the game since he made that claim and you can tell that is the case.

Aside from the turret bugs theres nothing to really be concerned about.
Engi are in a pretty good place, although all classes are really looking great these days.

About half of Ranger’s posts were from one of the devs (not even on the balance team) talking shop, four months ago. More recently, the Warrior has gotten a lot of devposts, with four in the last month.

At this point, I’m not sure if there’s any point threadbombing class forums, anyway. Most classes seem to be receiving a roughly equal share of attention, once talking-shop is pruned out; the exceptions are still Ranger (I think Hrouda had 36+ posts on that board, but I’m not sure, including a thread where he recommended pets for different situations), Necromancer (very little talking shop about the class that I can recall, but a lot of addressing of issues/investigating of bug reports, making this the clear leader in devposts-in-lifetime.), and Guardian (with ten whole responses.). Warrior also has the most recent responses, largely in threads with the [BUG] tag. Having gone through all of these things, and reading a fairly large portion of them…I think the reason they’re not talking to us about the Kits is because they don’t need to investigate it.

I think, if we want to draw attention to the particular issues that seem to contribute most to us feeling ignored, then after this next patch (on the off-chance they actually do something about them), we get as many screenshots and videos demonstrating the bugs as we can into one or two threads here and on the Game Bugs boards, with, hopefully, any Engineer reading clicking +1 to help bring it to the attention of the staff.
Hell, Report the posts to make sure some poor sap has to look. Request the threads be stickied, if you want.

What I mean by ‘one or two threads:’ One thread for Kits, Legendaries and Back Items, one thread for Turrets and their issues.

Maybe that’ll get them to actually say/do a kitten thing about it besides “sneak stuff in.” If not, then we can always try something more raucous.

Arkham Creed.7358:

It certainly is interesting to see how many posts we’ve actually gotten, though our total is still miles behind that of the ranger and the necromancer. So, in keeping with my thread invasion idea, I saw we start post bombing in the ranger forum. I get that we’re not actually being ignored in our entirety, but that doesn’t change the fact that some of the biggest issues the engineer community have are being ignored.

While I am pleased to see the kit issue –a personal concern of mine- getting a few posts addressing it, I still feel that we could get more open and honest feedback about it. I’ll come right out and say it, since tip-toeing around the issue has never yielded results; Colin Johanson lied in his post. I realize that is pretty inflammatory, but it is apparently what went down. The man is one of the biggest authorities on the development side of Guild Wars 2, so you can’t honestly expect me to believe that he just didn’t know that his claim of the team focusing more on tech and quality of life issues than cosmetic ones was a load of crap. Just look at all the cosmetic stuff added to the game since he made that claim and you can tell that is the case.

Not that I believe Colin Johanson needs anyone to defend him, but the suggestion that he “lied” because of the addition of new armor sets to the Gem Store is kind of ridiculous.

They rolled out with the largest balance patch to-date a little over a month ago, encouraging me to strip away 25 points from where I used to use them and now conveniently place them in Tools. And now this Tuesday they are completely revising the loot table of all Champion mobs, giving them better drops, including some unique skins. They’ve additionally just recently rolled out the new achievement reward system, which really changes how a lot of people treat and view achievements. They’re also completely revamping the dungeon system, reworking how rewards are doled out at the end of each path. And there’s the Account Wallet, which is probably the next patch’s biggest feature (aside from content), freeing up an entire tab of my bank that was once loaded up with Badges of Honor, dungeon tokens, and Fractal Relics—and no longer making me buy up Orrian Treasure Boxes to try and transfer karma between characters.

They’ve definitely been putting their nose to the grindstone improving the game the past three months or so—the game is markedly different. So excuse me if I roll my eyes at the assertion that CJ is deceptively pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes just because ANet additionally wants to create some more revenue by releasing new skins that actually look very good on Engineers.

ANet has been hard at work at a lot of stuff that has global ramifications to the way the game operates; local issues like the Engineer kits being hidden will be addressed in time, but I think we all know that ANet has bigger fish to fry. Would you rather we see the end of PvE culling, or hiding your kit backpack first? Really now.

Like The Gates Assassin posted above, I think you guys need to chill out and re-think your priorities here.

Maybe it is only me here, but I feel like when you have a cosmetic driven game like Guild Wars 2 you should probably make sure the cosmetic items already in the game work properly before you add more stuff that you’ll just have to fix later.

I recently rolled an engineer and got it 80, its a really fun class ^^.

I only wish it had more options to play in PvE. While grenades is a funny tool to play, would be nice to have more options and weapon sets to play with power builds with a little more variety. It has a way to go :P.

Arkham Creed.7358:

Maybe it is only me here, but I feel like when you have a cosmetic driven game like Guild Wars 2 you should probably make sure the cosmetic items already in the game work properly before you add more stuff that you’ll just have to fix later.

They do work properly.

They just get overridden by Engineer kits. This is a minor cosmetic problem that affects a very small population of the game.

It will get fixed in time, but like I said—and Colin Johanson in his post you claimed he “lied” in—they have more important matters to work on. And part of that is maintaining an income level to support the game’s development, which is why they’re releasing gem store items.

Phineas Poe.3018:

They do work properly.

Clearly you’ve not seen that bug that causes back skins to glitch through whatever kit you have equipped. Been around since beta, and there still hasn’t even been a mention of it, let alone a fix. Engineer kit cosmetics do not work properly, and they never have.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

They’re busy. Christ guys.

Glue Bomb bugged, applied multiple ticks. Hotfixed within 24hours, heck i think it was within 12 hours even.

Turrets bugged, overcharge not working, greatly kitten damage and firerates, flat out refusing to work etc. Broken for well over a month now.

These bugs both happend in the same patch.

Its kinda hard to sit here and applaud the profression development when we are still dealing with serious bugs that have been around since the Beta.
Last patch buffed most professions, just flat out a buff, except Engineer and Elementalist.

They pretty much didnt even touch the Engineer or Elementalist in the same time that they made quite a lot of changes to all the other professions. (Buffs and bugfixes)

So, are we being ignored? Well, we’re certainly a low priority when it comes to development.

bulent.7391:

-rng makes some of the utilities completely useless.

And one of our elites.

Arkham Creed.7358:

Phineas Poe.3018:

They do work properly.

Clearly you’ve not seen that bug that causes back skins to glitch through whatever kit you have equipped. Been around since beta, and there still hasn’t even been a mention of it, let alone a fix. Engineer kit cosmetics do not work properly, and they never have.

Clearly I have.

Phineas Poe.3018:

They do work properly.

They just get overridden by Engineer kits.

Phineas Poe.3018:

Arkham Creed.7358:

Phineas Poe.3018:

They do work properly.

Clearly you’ve not seen that bug that causes back skins to glitch through whatever kit you have equipped. Been around since beta, and there still hasn’t even been a mention of it, let alone a fix. Engineer kit cosmetics do not work properly, and they never have.

Clearly I have.

Phineas Poe.3018:

They do work properly.

They just get overridden by Engineer kits.

I said nothing about being overridden; I said clipping through. As in you see both of them at the same time.